Method Eco-Friendly Cleaners Review

I’m a huge fan of making my own cleaning materials, and using natural products. Especially with children either on the floor, or having a fetish for spray bottles, using water and essential oils for cleaning has become the norm for me.

Unfortunately, it’s all too simple for my husband. It seems he can’t get his head around water + essential oil = powerful cleaner, and he prefers to use commercial cleaning products when he cleans anything. (Which he does, and for that I’m grateful enough to not kick up too much of a fuss.) Unfortunately he’ll pretty much always go for the cheapest thing he can find, which I’m pretty sure correlates directly with exactly how bad it is for the environment, and for the children and us, breathing it in or absorbing it through our skins.

Whenever he’s been cleaning, I have to open windows to let the toxic fumes out.

So when I was offered a variety of Method cleaning products to review, I thought that sounded like an ideal place to look for a good compromise.

Method use plant based solvents and surfactants that are non-toxic and biodegradable to pack a cleaning punch.

Today I decided was a good day for some serious housework, and embarked on a seven hour deep cleaning – late spring, actually summer – clean. I started with the Method Multi-surface cleaner and decided to really put it to the test, using it on mirrors, laminate flooring and even the walls and I can tell you straight up, I’m impressed. It cut through all the marks and sticky stains and everything with no added effort on my part. Ameli cleaned her art table herself – it definitely does what it says on the tin, as it took all the crayon marks off with a 3 year old’s strength behind it. Not bad at all.

Also, my mirrors were amazingly clean after Lions Bay cleaning services. Seriously, I still look at them every now and then just to remark on how clear they are.

Next up was the bathroom.

Normally, I leave the bathroom to my husband and his industrial cleaners, because, well… because.

Tonight, however, I put the girls in the bath, and took to the sink and toilet to see how Method would handle it. A couple of sprays from the Eucalyptus Mint Method Bathroom Cleaner actually brought the sink to a gleam I haven’t seen in a while. There’s no residual chemical lines or soapiness or anything. I’m quite impressed. The taps actually sparkle. With that I’m equally impressed, especially because normally getting them to shine involves a dry cloth and some shining.

One thing it doesn’t do is remove lime scale, but then it’s not a lime scale remover, so fair dues.

The toilet cleaner is really nice too, although not a miracle worker. Let’s just say a friend’s little boy left traces of his visit a few days ago, and it still needed a toilet brush. The bowl does pretty much sparkle though, so I’m not complaining.

The best bit though, is that it took me a couple of minutes while the girls were bathing to clean everything, and it looked like I had put loads of time and effort into scrubbing, which I really didn’t.

My husband is the regular kitchen cleaner in the house, and he gave the Kitchen Cleaner a good rating. He thinks it had a nicer fragrance than his regular product, which was very strong and chemically, but worked as effectively. He also mentioned that it seemed to make everything shine more than he was used to, which I thought was great! He also used the all-purpose cleaner to clean one of the metal trays that had been used to roast potatoes, and he was quite happy with how easily it cut through the grease.

The fact of the matter remains that while these products are made from plant derived ingredients, they still undergo more chemical treatments than my water and essential oil, so I think for the normal mopping up after the children things, I’ll probably carry on using my own products, but for deeper cleaning, and for whatever my husband cleans – and for windows and mirrors – we’ll actually be sticking to Method now. At around £3 a bottle, they’re also quite affordable.

I’m really pleased, because it means we can bin the toxins he has hidden on a high shelf in the study, and we can instead come to a compromise of home made and Method, which sees us both happy.

*We were sent these products to try. Opinions are my own.